fended by a breastwork, over which friends could get by means of a ladder. Many of these caves bear traces of having been human habitations, and are furnished with rude rock-tables and other conveniences. 6 In the Nun's Cave,' at Inimore, many crosses are cut in the rock, supposed to be the work of the nuns who are said to have taken refuge in the cave, after the demolition of the monastery at Iona. In many of these places we follow the track of Johnson and Boswell, whom we again trace to the great cave of Beallachaghaochan, near to Barr and Glencreggan, on the western coast of Cantire. At Lochgoil-head, not far from the Castle of Ardkinglass, there is a cave, called Uamh mhei Sain Reoich, where the old laird, with a few followers, is said to have been concealed from his enemies for a twelvemonth, while some faithful vassals contrived to supply them with food during that period. In the same district is another cave, called Uamh na plundarain, the narrow entrance to which is hidden by heath and ferns, through which, when a person has crept, he has access to a series of caves of various dimensions, which are said to have been often tenanted by robbers, and on one occasion by the whole of the inhabitants of the neighbouring village, who had fled from the vassals of Athol when they made an irruption into Argyllshire. On the shore of Kilninver there are similar caves which are said to have been used for habitation in early times; and, in more recent periods, to have been the resort of smugglers with their illicit stills. In the narrow Island of Lismore there are many caves, some of which are believed to extend across the island from one side to the other. On the opposite coast of Appin is the Cave of Ardsheal, situated on the side of a deep ravine on the hill of that name, where a gentleman of the name of Stewart is said to have found a hiding-place in the troublous times of Forty-five. In the Island of Ulva, where the basaltic columns rival those of Staffa, there is one large cave, in the face of a steep rock, 60 feet deep by 58 feet wide, and with an average height of 30 feet. At Laggan Point, in Mull, the Atlantic waves have, in the course of time, tunnelled two great caves, one of which is 300 feet in length, and widens to 45 feet, with a height of 120 feet; and the other is 150 feet in length, with a breadth of 12, and a height of 24. These two caves are connected with each other, and bear the one name Odin's Cave'—a memorial, doubtless, of the Danish invasion. 336 The Flower and the Form. I SWEET-HEARTED maiden, in my June of flow'rs Whose perfume strikes from misty, far-off hours II I meet you by the winding meadow-brook, A look of welcome to a lover's look Is your reply. III When was my heart thick thronged with joy like this? I stoop to read The answer in your eyes-nor dreamed to kiss This kiss indeed. IV I take your hand. How soft and very fair! A jewelled ring I silently slipped there V Sweet-hearted maiden, in the scent of flow'rs I see you, and I live the perfect hours Of our linked lives. RICHARD DOWLING. Tom Hood. JUST ten years have passed since the last of a series of little reunions of social and literary friends, held as regularly as Friday came round, took place in the house marked number eighteen of the street in which I am now writing-South Street, Brompton. The host and hostess of these occasions, and but too large a proportion of the guests, have entered into the eternal silence. Tom Hood and his wife have gone; Morten, the artist, perished by an untimely death; Paul Gray, also an artist, was struck down by consumption soon afterwards; W. J. Prowse succumbed to the same malady at Nice; Tom Robertson, the author of Society, lived only long enough to witness the establishment of his fame and fortune. These Friday evenings had their origin in the consultations held over a periodical long since defunct-'Saturday Night.' They were honest, genial, and successful attempts to reproduce a species of social gathering which was even then obsolete, and upon a scale of sincere, enjoyable, and modest hospitality, which in an age of snobbish ostentation, when Bohemianism apes the airs of 'society' even as some society mimics Bohemianism, has become an anachronism. Any time between ten and midnight the guests began to drop in. The weekly holiday had begun for them, inaugurated perhaps by a visit to the theatre, to which there succeeded supper at Tom Hood's. For those who had not gone to the play, there were chat and tobacco first. Then came the meal itself-simple, wholesome, and delectable. After supper there were more chat and more tobacco, songs, and recitations. Mr. H. S. Leigh was ever ready to oblige' with a melody, whose words and music were his own. W. J. Prowse, having done his journalistic work for the week, his eyes sparkling with humour, his whole face lit up with intelligence-a noticeable little man, upon whom true genius had set its stamp-would fascinate all who heard him with quaint, whimsical, witty talk, reminding one of Charles Lamb, without Lamb's stutter; Tom Robertson would conceal the goodness of his heart beneath the veil of a rasping, defiant, and pungent cynicism; Mr. George Rose introduced for the amusement of the company the immortal Mrs. Brown; poor Tom Morten stood by the fire, his coat tightly buttoned, his pipe never from his mouth, suggesting topics for the muse of Browning, or a series of illustrations for Paracelsus; and upon the beautifully VOL. XXXII. NO. CXXVII. Ꮓ mobile face of Paul Gray, as he listened to all that passed, was an expression now of Irish fun, and now of thoughtful intelligence. Abiere ad plures: all that was most brilliant in the promise and performance of those days has followed the days themselves. In 1866 or 1867 the Brompton Establishment was broken up. Tom Hood settled at Penge, and for the Friday nights' were substituted the meeting of the Serious Family,' held on Saturdays at some chambers in Gray's Inn. The retrospect of the original gatherings may suggest a little picture not unworthy of a place beside that which Talfourd has left us of Elia's supper and whist parties in the Temple. A small society which counted two such men as Prowse and Robertson could not be called undistinguished. Of the latter it is scarcely necessary to speak. Twelve years ago he had just succeeded in making his mark as a dramatist. Society had been produced at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. The critics, animated by the jealousy of unsuccessful playwrights, had pointed out that it was faulty as regards construction and plot; but the public had decided that it was the best and freshest thing which they had seen for years, and flocked nightly to the theatre at which it was played. As for Prowse, his name has already shared the journalist's destiny. W. J. Prowse was in his way a genius, but he was a genius whose almost exclusive field of display was the columns of a daily newspaper. Nothing could have been more admirable of their kind than Prowse's 'Telegraph' leaders. That he took Mr. G. A. Sala as his model was inevitable. But while reproducing several of Mr. Sala's idiosyncratic excellences, there were beauties and merits even in his ephemeral writing which were all his own. He had not merely a keen eye for the picturesque, a strangely genuine and unaffected humour, and that aptitude essential to the popular journalist of approaching and introducing his subject from the most effective point of view; he had also a sincere and inborn sympathy with all that was good, noble, and pure in human nature, heroic in history, elevating and inspiring in everyday life. Coming of a respectable Devonshire stock, he was, as one of his friends-I think Tom Hood himself—has put it, quietly proud of belonging to the same county as Raleigh, Drake, and a host of the other naval worthies of the Elizabethan era. in his writings there was a lightness of touch that was French rather than English, an incisive and weird humour which reminded one of Sterne more than of any author of British blood, Jeff Prowse was an Englishman of Englishmen in his appreciation of courage, chivalry, pluck. His articles on boating and cricketon the latter subject they were always written with special and technical knowledge-were of their sort incomparable. Anything If connected with the angler or the angler's art he handled in the same fresh and delightful fashion. A truer fisherman never was condemned to the weary round of Fleet Street: a more enthusiastic cricketer never took up his residence in Bloomsbury. But there were times when the genial, tender, true-hearted little gentleman -and a gentleman in the highest as well as in the conventional sense of the word Jeff Prowse was-would go farther afield than this, and would take his pleasure with exquisite relish and enthusiasm in the haunts dedicated to the sports which he loved so well. Often was his line dropped in the Thames on the fine warm Saturdays of June; seldom was there a match of great interest or importance played at Lord's or on the Oval of part of which the gallant little man, with eager glistening eyes, did not contrive to be a spectator, applauding with the discrimination of the connoisseur the more delicate touches of play-the balls cunningly stopped or neatly blocked, as well as the dashing catches and the startling hits which were the subject of tempests of vulgar cheers. Between Tom Hood and W. J. Prowse there existed a friendship whose peculiar closeness was quite intelligible to those who had studied the characters of the two men. Hood was a remarkably handsome, and was intended by Nature to be physically a very powerful, man. Naturally, too, though the sinister and even malignant influences to which he was too frequently exposed warped his feelings and distorted his views, he was kind-hearted, gentle, and affectionate. He was a warm friend, and was lavish in the generosity with which he assisted all those whom he liked and whom it was in his power to help. His tastes were for the most part the tastes of the English gentleman who has been bred in the country. He loved flowers, gardening, birds, cats, and dogs with a passionate and unfeigned affection. He admired feats of daring and skill in games. At Oxford he was somewhat of a dilettante, but he had brought away with him from the place healthy ideas and useful experiences. Prowse, on the other hand, concealed the heart of a hero in a weakly and insignificant body. He was short of stature and plain of countenance. His forehead, indeed, was noble, and his face was redeemed from ill-favour by the light which played over it from eyes whose expression spoke of intellectual power and tender magnanimity combined. Unlike as the two men were in presence, in brain, even in social education and knowledge, their natures were still traversed by similar veins. There was the same nobility in each; not a few of the same prejudices and tastes; the same high standard of thought and action was accepted by both. Prowse admired the manliness of Hood; Hood admired the genius of Prowse. Prowse was, moreover, incompar |